Zeeland Farm Services: Staying ahead of the curve on feed, food and fuel
One of our most inspiring visits was to family-owned Zeeland Farm Services, a diversified agribusiness and transportation company that has been growing and adapting continuously since it was founded in 1950 by Bob Meeuwsen as a produce haulage business (one man and his truck).
It built a soybean processing plant in 1996 and vegetable oil refinery and bleaching facility in 2006.
Green energy
The same year, it built a 6.5 mile pipeline from a landfill site in Holland to capture methane gas that would have otherwise been burned into the air and wasted. This is used to fire two reciprocating engines that produce electricity which is sold to the grid, while landfill gas is also used in the ZFS boilers to produce steam.
But it has also been on the acquisition trail, buying corn processing facilities in Nebraska and Pennsylvania in recent years.
Today, ZFS comprises four businesses and employs more than 330 people.
Zeeland Farm Services - The Grain Division markets corn, wheat, soybeans, and other grains including the specialty soybeans and soybean meal and hulls produced by Zeeland Farm Soya. The Ingredients Division supplies feed ingredients and the elevator division provides storage for soybeans, corn, and wheat and offers custom blending. The seed division supplies specialty soybean seeds as well as corn, wheat and alfalfa.
Zeeland Farm Soya - ZFS is the proud owner of the state's only soybean processing plant, and processes 12% of the soybeans grown in Michigan into soybean meal (a protein-rich food used in animal and human food), hulls (a fiber-rich ingredient used in human and animal foods), and oil (for human food and biodiesel).
Zeeland Freight Services - ZFS operates a fleet of trucks transporting grain and feed ingredients. It also services all of its own trucks (and a lot of other firms' trucks as well). It also has tankers to deliver ZFS soybean oil to customers, while container trucks transport ZFS non-GMO soybean meal in 20 and 40-foot containers and provide intermodal transportation to customers throughout the Midwest.
Zeeland Food Services- Zeeland has made a name for itself in recent years developing and processing non-GMO soybeans, from which it makes soybean oil and other products. The oil - which is refined, bleached and deodorized on site, is sold to the food industry in bulk but also packaged and sold under the low sat fat Zoye retail brand (formerly SelectOil) in a variety of formats including a low saturated fat liquid fry shortening, an ultra-low linolenic liquid fry shortening (non-GMO) and various salad oils.
Non-GMO soybeans: All of a sudden, we seem to be in the right place at the right time
The specialty non-GMO soybean meal from these ZF Select beans - which are monitored and tracked from the development of the seed, to planting, harvest, production, and delivery - is sold in several formats including a version exported in large quantities (40,000t/year) to Japan to make Kikkoman soy sauce.
So has the non-GMO side of the business picked up given all the recent interest in the US?
"All of a sudden, we seem to be in the right place at the right time", says marketing manager Beth Westermeyer (pictured above).
"15% of what we process is now non-GMO and while we're just having a lot of conversations right now [rather than seeing a huge upsurge in orders for non-GMO products], it's coming.”
